Cause and Effect
' |image= |series= |production= 40275-218 |producer(s)= |story= |script= Brannon Braga |director= Jonathan Frakes |imdbref=tt0162905 |guests=Kelsey Grammer as Morgan Bateson, Michelle Forbes as Ro Laren, Patti Yasutake as Alyssa Ogawa |previous_production=The Outcast |next_production=The First Duty |episode= TNG S05E18 |airdate= 23 March 1992 |previous_release=The Outcast |next_release=The First Duty |story_date(s)=Stardate 45652.1 |previous_story=The Outcast |next_story=The First Duty }} =Summary= The Enterprise is caught in a time loop (referred to in-universe as a "temporal causality loop"). The loop begins with the senior members of the crew playing poker and continues for about a day when they discover an spatial anomaly. While studying the anomaly, a ship suddenly emerges from it, and though Captain Jean-Luc Picard takes Lt. Commander Data's advice over Commander William T. Riker's for avoiding a collision, the new ship clips the warp nacelle, causing a critical failure and the destruction of the Enterprise moments later, at which point the loop restarts. Initially, the crew are unaware of the loop. However, Dr. Beverly Crusher begins to hear noises before she goes to bed following the poker game. Having a sense of déjà vu during the poker game and able to predict the cards Data will deal during a subsequent loop, Crusher takes a tricorder with her to her room, records the voices, and later analyzes them to discover they are the panicked commands and broadcasts of the crew. The senior staff work out that they are stuck in the loop; the voices they are hearing are those of themselves from the previous loop just prior to the destruction of the ship. They evaluate the voices to determine that the loop is restarted due to the collision of the two ships but do not know how to avoid that collision in the first place. Data suggests that his positronic brain can be used to send a short message to himself in the next loop which may help them to avoid the collision. When they arrive at the anomaly, and after the collision, Data sends the message. On the following loop, Crusher again has a feeling of déjà vu during the poker game, but when Data deals the next hand, all the cards are threes, followed by a hand where all players have three of a kind. The number 3 begins appearing throughout other parts of the ship's operations while, again, they determine they are stuck in a time loop. When they reach the anomaly and the ship appears from it, Data suddenly realizes that the 3 stands for the number of command pips on Riker's uniform, and executes Riker's option instead of his own. This allows Enterprise to safely clear the oncoming ship. The anomaly disappears and the time loop ends, and the crew realize they have been trapped in the loop for over 17 days, while the other ship, the USS Bozeman, has been missing for over 90 years. Picard welcomes the Bozeman's crew to the 24th century. =Errors and Explanations= Plot Holes # Enterprise not moving far enough when the decompression effect from the shuttlebay subsides. The ship's inertia would keep it moving forward. Internet Movie Database Incorrectly regarded as goofs # Space appears to be shaking when the Enterprise is out of control. This seems to be a common effect whenever explosions occur, in order to simulate the shock wave. # The causality loop is said to have been caused by the explosion in close proximity to the temporal distortion. This would not explain why the USS Bozeman has been caught in such a loop for decades. This is never actually stated, though. In the sequence of events, the Bozeman traveled through the temporal distortion into the time of the Enterprise. Once in the future, the Bozeman then hit the Enterprise and causing the explosion and the beginning of the loop. Captain Bateson gives the year as 2378, but it was the temporal distortion and not the time loop that brought the Bozeman into the future. The Bozeman was likely only in the loop as long as the Enterprise was. # During the last time loop, Geordi mentions the occurrences of threes in connection with the poker game a couple of times, although he hadn't actually taken part in it. It stands to reason that he got the information about the occurrences during the poker game from Data some time prior to the staff briefing. Plot holes # On the final loop, data remembers what 'three' means. That is to go with Riker's suggestion to decompress the main shuttle bay instead of using the tractor beam. However, there was no guarantee that Riker's idea would have worked either.There is no guarantee that the idea would have failed. In any case, it's better than doing nothing! Nit Central # Mike Ram on Wednesday, May 12, 1999 - 8:46 pm: Crusher should have gone to sick bay, not the bridge, if a potentially dangerous anomaly appears…'She is a senior officer, and may be needed on the bridge to co-ordinate the response to any resulting medical emergencies.' # Ro's earring is on the wrong side…'She may be experimenting with wearing it on the other ear.' # Tractor beams bring stuff closer, not farther away...Nathan K. on Wednesday, May 12, 1999 - 10:49 pm: The tractor beam seems to act more like a rope that can drag a ship at a fixed distance than a gravity field that constantly pulls things in. In this case they were trying to use the beam to swing the Bozeman past the Enterprise. Seniram 15:46, June 3, 2016 (UTC) It may have been programmed to act in reverse, like it did against the Stargazer during The Battle.. # LUIGI NOVI on Monday, May 21, 2001 - 10:49 pm: Every time the Bozeman appears, why doesn’t it respond it to the Enterprise’s hails? Maybe its communications are down, but then why does it respond after the Enterprise finally breaks them free of the loop? Was the older Bozeman just being snotty, and then changed its mind when the Enterprise did it a good deed? margie on Thursday, May 24, 2001 - 12:10 pm: Regarding the Bozeman not answering the hails: we don't know what was going on on the Bozeman. Perhaps they were too busy trying to avoid the Enterprise to answer, or they did not recognize the Enterprise since that kind of ship was not yet in existence when the Bozeman went into the loop. They may have been trying to identify the ship before responding to the hail. It's just a thought. I could be wrong. ''ScottN on Thursday, May 24, 2001 - 1:33 pm:''The temporal anomaly could have been causing interference on the communications channels, too. # In Act 3, during the third full loop, Beverly records the voices in her quarters, and later says she recorded 6.2 seconds of them, but from the time she turned on her tricorder, (as indicated by its beeps) to the time the voices stopped was more like 8 seconds. That would include 1.8 seconds of other sounds, in addition to the voices. # Why does Crusher have to be the one to treat Geordi? The fact that she’s at a poker game means she’s off duty, and Remember Me established that there are always four medical personnel on duty at all times. Why can’t one of them treat him? Perhaps there is a regulation requiring senior officers to only receive medical treatment from the Chief Medical Officer =Sources= Category:Episodes Category:The Next Generation